Saturday, January 03, 2009

Manohla, Stephen and A.O. pick their five favorites in the top 8 categories... I love that there's so much disagreement. Diversity always makes it more interesting (are you listening endless critics organizations?). The NYT trinity is basing their choices on New York City releases so at least two choices: 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, on my Best Picture list last year, and Reprise, on my best picture list this year, are not eligible for Oscar consideration.

Both A.O. Scott and Manohla enter bizarro world for a few choices. Scott picks Jeff Bridges as a "best" supporting actor for Iron Man? I am a huge Bridges fan and the movie was fun but that has to be one of the great actor's worst turns. Manohla cheekily (at least I hope it's cheekily) offers up Werner Herzog as Best Actor for narrating Encounters at the End of the World.

There's only four points of total agreement: Anne Hathaway (Rachel Getting Married) and Sally Hawkins (Happy-Go-Lucky) both deserve Best Actress nominations (will both make it to Oscar's shortlist?), Eddie Marsan as Supporting Actor for Happy-Go-Lucky, and The Class for Best Adapted Screenplay.

if a film is submitted by its home country one year and is NOT nominated for foreign language film and then opens in regular release the very next year (not two years later) in LA it is then eligible for all categories EXCEPT foreign film.

However if it is nominated for foreign film and sees release the following year it is not eligible.

confusing but true.

an excellent year to understand all this is 2002/2003.

HERO (china) and CITY OF GOD (brazil) were both submitted for foreign language consideration for the 2002 Oscars. Hero was nominated and City of God was not.

City of God got a proper release in early 2003 and academy members, presumably angry that it didn't get the foreign language spot, nominated in in multiple categories for the 2003 awards. It was eligible since it had failed to get the nom in 2002 but then had the normal qualifying release the very next year.

HERO, waited two years to open after its nominations and was no longer eligible. Here's the confusing part. Had it been ignored in foreign film (like City of God) If would STILL have been ineligible for other awards since it waited 2 years for release.

This is why REPRISE (norway) is not eligible in any categories this year. It was submitted and ignored in 2006. It came out a year too late for a second chance consideration.

Nice to see all three had noms somewhere for A Christmas Tale. I saw that film before it closed here on Thursday night, and really really enjoyed it. Deneuve is still a goddess. I couldn't help thinking at one point that the Vuillards made RGM's Buchmans look sane! Thanks, Nathaniel, for recommending this so highly; otherwise I might have passed over it in the December crush.

I guess the thinking is that if it was nominated a for foreign film, it's likely that it would've been nominated in other categories, too? Many nominated titles are released normally here the year of their nomination.

Plus it's just weird to have the same film nominated for things in different years.

Do you think THE FALL warrants accolades for its dazzling art direction? Correct me if I’m wrong, but it was mostly on-location shooting (all around the world). So, is this more a MARIE ANTOINETTE situation or are the freshly constructed/designed sets of DARK KNIGHT, INDIANA JONES 4, and BENJAMIN BUTTON more deserving?

This is amazing news for Sally Hawkins and Sean Penn because over the last 6 years (2002-2007) the NSFC has correctly picked the Best Actor and Best Actress winners 10 out of 12 times. Incorectly choosing Diane Lane and Julie Christie.

Strange that Manohla Dargis would pick 4 of the ladies of Synecdoche, New York to fill out her Best Supporting Actress ballot and leave out the cast's most invaluable member (that'd be Dianne Wiest, if you ask me.)

Also glad to see two mentions for Emile Hirsch in Milk -- very undervalued.

NYFCC and NSFC together are kind of hard to ignore. Particularly when no one else is standing out as "lone director" material. For example, neither Demme nor Aronofsky has managed a single directing award. Ditto for their films in best picture. I think it's either Leigh, Stanton (yeah I said it) or no one, i.e. Ron Howard.

YHHanna Schygulla is actually a movie star. She was an important figure in the 70s & 80s (Rainer Werner Fassbinder's muse)... so this might be a sentimental pick in some ways (i can't guess how deserving she is since I missed that particular movie)

i agree it would have been cool to see HGL win best picture too but critics awards almost never go that sweepy ;)

And this stuff with foreign film is why these one week qualifiers are terrible. If 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days hadn't have been given one last year it would be eligible this year and you can guarantee SOMETHING would've been done about that. Best Screenplay for instance.

Nathaniel, you should definitely see it. Not necessarily because of Hanna Schygulla's performance, but simply because it's a beautiful film. In my opinion, Fatih Akin is definitely one of the most interesting European directors right now, I simply love his work.